Is there an afterlife? / The ultimate goal for man

[St Giordano Bruno]

I look on an afterlife as just that, "after" life and not life itself, as we observe it and accustomed to. The concept of an afterlife can be used to comfort people or alternatively scare them by forcing them to believe they may have endure an ongoing punishment after death and therefore blamed for some sin of crime we committed in this life . I personally cannot possibly believe that one could experience some ongoing existence after death that is not life as we know it such as a ghost or a heavenly spirit being.

 

[Flat Earth Kyle]

Stop changing your story, you claim that your god COMMANDS gratitude and if you don't he will refuse you happiness, he's terribly insecure isn't he. I am not the least bit grateful to your god, not one bit. But I am ecstatically happy, so either your god is lieing or these "apostles" you believe are lieing or your god doesn't exist. I'll let you choose, since you set the parameters.

I'm not changing my story, and I didn't say he would refuse happiness.
God abides by the laws of happiness and he tells you what those laws are. When you break those laws you become unhappy. There is no way around it.

You may be ungrateful to my God, but I can guarantee you are grateful for other things in your life and that is why you are happy.

 

[fishy]

I'm not changing my story, and I didn't say he would refuse happiness.
God abides by the laws of happiness and he tells you what those laws are. When you break those laws you become unhappy. There is no way around it.

You may be ungrateful to my God, but I can guarantee you are grateful for other things in your life and that is why you are happy.

You claimed that your god commands gratitude and if you show gratitude then he will bestow happiness upon you, there is a natural corollary to that. ie if you don't show gratitude happiness will be withheld .
So someone or something created laws that your god must abide by, interesting.
I don't see a relationship between my happiness and your god, never the twain shall meet.

 

[Flat Earth Kyle]

You claimed that your god commands gratitude and if you show gratitude then he will bestow happiness upon you, there is a natural corollary to that. ie if you don't show gratitude happiness will be withheld .
So someone or something created laws that your god must abide by, interesting.
I don't see a relationship between my happiness and your god, never the twain shall meet.

God gives blessings to the obedient. It is just more things to be grateful for.
Just think of the blessing of knowledge, do you think God can give you knowledge of how to do algebra without first giving you the knowledge of how to do multiplication? If you choose to disobey and not learn multiplication, how do you expect God to teach you algebra?


If you knew how God was linked to those things you were grateful for, of which gratitude gives you happiness, I think you would see things otherwise.

 

[Flat Earth Kyle]

So someone or something created laws that your god must abide by, interesting.

I never said someone or something created those laws. Just like God, they are infinite laws having no beginning and no end.

 

[fishy]

I never said someone or something created those laws. Just like God, they are infinite laws having no beginning and no end.

So now we have immutable laws that haven't come from an almighty god, but not only do we have to obey them but god must as well.
Do you have a list of these laws that cannot be broken even by god?

 

[fishy]

God gives blessings to the obedient. It is just more things to be grateful for.
Just think of the blessing of knowledge, do you think God can give you knowledge of how to do algebra without first giving you the knowledge of how to do multiplication? If you choose to disobey and not learn multiplication, how do you expect God to teach you algebra?


If you knew how God was linked to those things you were grateful for, of which gratitude gives you happiness, I think you would see things otherwise.

I didn't see god in that classroom.:biglaugh:

 

[Flat Earth Kyle]

So now we have immutable laws that haven't come from an almighty god, but not only do we have to obey them but god must as well.
Do you have a list of these laws that cannot be broken even by god?

Not exactly, but I should make one.

One of those laws is God can not lie, for if he were to lie he would cease to be God.

 

[Flat Earth Kyle]

I didn't see god in that classroom.:biglaugh:

It was an analogy.

 

[Me Myself]

In my studies I have learned that Hindus believe that the ultimate goal for man to achieve is to break the cycle of reincarnation and cease to exist

*wrong*

What do you think the ultimate goal is for man?

The ultimate goal trascends speech, but here are a couple of words that try to define it:

Self-realization

Moksha

Nirvana

Perfection

Oneness

 

[Me Myself]

Let's grant that morality is completely relative without god. Genocide isn't wrong. Wrong is just an opinion. subjective morality.

God requested genocide more than a couple of times in the OT.

 

[Me Myself]

One of those laws is God can not lie, for if he were to lie he would cease to be God.

But he has lied.

I don´t remember the part of the OT, but he said a prophet that he was going to destroy some people/land (maybe egypt?) and to act as his messager.

He didn´t wanna go but God forced him. Then he did go and delivered the message of destruction. Ultimately though, God repented from causing them ill, and did not destroy them.

The prophet was mad with God because he said he knew God would do this and that was why he didn´t wanna be his messenger.

Now I am not saying I don´t like him having changed his mind, but it does make it a lie what he did. Specially because God knwos all his decisions beforehand, and in such manner, his "changing his mind" is not even the correct way of putting it.

 

[Flat Earth Kyle]

But he has lied.

I don´t remember the part of the OT, but he said a prophet that he was going to destroy some people/land (maybe egypt?) and to act as his messager.

He didn´t wanna go but God forced him. Then he did go and delivered the message of destruction. Ultimately though, God repented from causing them ill, and did not destroy them.

The prophet was mad with God because he said he knew God would do this and that was why he didn´t wanna be his messenger.

Now I am not saying I don´t like him having changed his mind, but it does make it a lie what he did. Specially because God knwos all his decisions beforehand, and in such manner, his "changing his mind" is not even the correct way of putting it.

I think you are talking about Jonah, who was told to go and warn the people to repent or be destroyed, when the people repented, they were not destroyed. Where was the lie?

 

[Me Myself]

I think you are talking about Jonah, who was told to go and warn the people to repent or be destroyed, when the people repented, they were not destroyed. Where was the lie?

I don´t find the part where he said that if people repented they wouldn´t be destroyed.

What I read Jonah said in behalf of his God is: "In 40 days, Ninive will be destroyed". That´s all.

If I am missing something, do point it to me. From where I read, God said he will destroy Ninive through his prophet Jonas, and then "changed his mind" (which is literaly imposible, so he lied knowing that this would make people of Ninive repent and that he would then spare them)

 

[no-body]

The need for an afterlife is just a further extension of the ego. We are always seeking and hoping for something better to fulfill ourselves, something that will never come. All that you need to do is eliminate the seeking (not even that as seeking to eliminate seeking is still another ego game) and heaven on earth will be amidst you.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Just answer my question, do you believe that there are laws, that when obeyed attribute to one's happiness?

Yes there are lawas which when obeyed attribute to one's happiness, and laws which when disobeyed attribute to one's happiness, and law's which when obeyed contribute to one's unhappiness, and law's which when disobeyed contribute to one's unhappiness.

There I answered your question.

Now if you would be so kind as to answer mind: How does the fact that god decrees X to be moral and Y to be immmoral make morality objective?

 

[connermt]

so if there is no afterlife? what is the point of this life? If there is no point, everyone should just go commit suicide because we are all doomed to a state of non existence anyway and it will make no difference. However, if we suddenly do that and afterwords find out that there was a big point to life that we just missed, I suppose it would be a really big oops moment wouldn't it.

Why does there have to be a point? Why can't people just be happy to exist? Where's the idea that life is fair and just and wonderful all the time? Where's the acceptance that, sometimes, life just sucks, but you deal with it?

 

[Flat Earth Kyle]

Yes there are lawas which when obeyed attribute to one's happiness, and laws which when disobeyed attribute to one's happiness, and law's which when obeyed contribute to one's unhappiness, and law's which when disobeyed contribute to one's unhappiness.

There I answered your question.

Now if you would be so kind as to answer mind: How does the fact that god decrees X to be moral and Y to be immmoral make morality objective?

God teaches us the laws of the universe that are already in motion what is objective about this?

 

[Flat Earth Kyle]

Yes there are lawas which when obeyed attribute to one's happiness, and laws which when disobeyed attribute to one's happiness, and law's which when obeyed contribute to one's unhappiness, and law's which when disobeyed contribute to one's unhappiness.

There I answered your question.

Now if you would be so kind as to answer mind: How does the fact that god decrees X to be moral and Y to be immmoral make morality objective?

What laws of the universe that when obeyed attribute to one's unhappiness? I challenge you to name one.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

What laws of the universe that when obeyed attribute to one's unhappiness? I challenge you to name one.

I'm not sure what you mean by laws of the universe. I've broken my leg twice falling while climbing and that was because of the law of gravity. I wasn't particularly happy.